6 Actors Who Nearly Died Filming 2014's Biggest Movies

3. The Expendables 3 Was A Death Trap For Everyone

The third instalment in Sylvester Stallone's action franchise very nearly started taking its name literally, with a laundry list of injuries nearly as long as its cast (which, FYI, barely even fits on a bus-side poster). Accidents, sprains and broken bones are pretty much a given on the set of a film with that many stunts, action sequences and pyrotechnics, but two things make the Expendables 3 stand out: firstly, they involved a bunch of old dudes who are frail and should know better; secondly, several of them nearly died whilst filming. One of the younger guns in the cast, Jason Statham, almost came to a sticky end during the filming of Expendables 3. The actor had to leap from a truck during a stunt gone horribly wrong, plummeting over sixty feet into ice cold water and very nearly drowning. Were it not for his strong swimming skills, the crash would've probably proved fatal, thanks to the truck in question suffering a brake failure. "I mean, usually I grade the quality of a film by the intensity of the injury. I do Rambo, The Expendables, I break my neck, I break my spine, I dislocate both shoulders, I go, 'This is going to be a good movie!'" said Stallone in an interview promoting the film. Sly himself wound up suffering one of his worst on-set injuries in a history littered with them, sustaining a back injury - a "back blast", which needed surgery - and now sports a permanent metal plate along his spine. So, maybe not lethal, but he could've easily crippled himself.